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137: Why Did Bob (Iger) Push Out Bob (Chapek) at Disney? Plus: ‘The Banshees of Inisherin,’ reviewed.

November 22, 2022
Notes
Transcript
On this week’s episode, Sonny Bunch (The Bulwark), Alyssa Rosenberg (The Washington Post), and Peter Suderman (Reason) discuss the late-night drama in Burbank, where former Disney CEO Bob Iger replaced current Disney CEO Bob Chapek. From tumbling stock prices to unhappy talent to a messy reorg, things weren’t going well … but is Iger the guy to right the ship? And then the gang reviews Martin McDonagh’s latest, The Banshees of Inisherin, a darkly comic parable about friendship in a time of civil war. Make sure to swing by Bulwark+ for this week’s bonus episode on our favorite foodie movies. And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend!
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors and omissions. Ironically, the transcription service has particular problems with the word “bulwark,” so you may see it mangled as “Bullard,” “Boulart,” or even “bull word.” Enjoy!
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:11

    Welcome back to across the movie I presented by Bulwark Plus. I am your host Sunny Bunch culture editor of the Bulwark. I’m joined as always by a list of Rosenberg of The Watchman Post and Peter Zimmerman. A recent magazine, Alyssa Peter, how are you today? I’m swell.
  • Speaker 2
    0:00:24

    I am happy to be talking about movies with friends.
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:27

    First up, in controversies and controversies, the mob is dead. Long live the mob. Before we begin, I just wanna set the scene Sunday night. I’ve had a few glasses of wine, and I looked down at my phone to see a text message from one Peter Sugarman. And I was like, god, that that can’t be right.
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:45

    This can’t be. Certainly, Peter has fallen for one of these fake blue checks and sent me a fake tweet from a fake Brooks Barnes account, but now it was real. It was real. What did this tweet say? Quote, Big Disney News, the Walt Disney Company NYSE DISE, announced today that Robert a Iger is returning to lead Disney as chief executive officer effective immediately, end quote.
  • Speaker 1
    0:01:09

    It was amazing. I’ve never really seen anything quite like this afford the head of one of the biggest media companies in the world fired via press release that sent every trade publication and every newsletter author and every podcast host scrambling to their laptop. Bob Chiapac following a bad few quarters and an earnings call that one person who follows these things pretty closely described to me as psychotic was out. His predecessor and the guy who handpicked him for the job, Bob Iger was back in. And I don’t think Bob Iger planned it this way, but it really is to an amazing bit of timing.
  • Speaker 1
    0:01:41

    Iger leaves the company right before COVID nineteen hits, which shuttered movie theaters and the theme parks and the cruise lines that just messed up every aspect of the Disney business. And he’s coming back a little bit before the company plans on Disney plus becoming profitable. Lost a lot of money. In the last quarter should be it should be headed towards profitability next year, late next year at some point. All of which is to say that JPEG got Delta bad ham and Iger was at least the dealer for some of those cards.
  • Speaker 1
    0:02:09

    He was the one who engineered the push in the streaming. He’s the one who created Disney’s addiction to Chinese box office dollars, which have taken a huge hit. He has, you know, not done he did not do well by JPEG exactly. It was also behind the scenes, kinda hanging around, saying, hey, you know that new guy kinda sucks, doesn’t he? Maybe maybe we could bring back me.
  • Speaker 1
    0:02:27

    But but speaker to Iger. He is the guy who remade the company into what it is today. He engineered deals to acquire Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Twentieth Century Fox. He’s the guy who created the only real Netflix challenger at least in terms of size with Disney plus and the Hulu ESPN plus bundle. And he is the guy that shareholders trust to write the ship because the CEO’s real job isn’t to decide what movies go to streaming.
  • Speaker 1
    0:02:49

    It’s not to decide which movies go to theaters. It’s not to figure out what the proper price point that you you gouge your theme park goers is. Right? It’s keeping shareholders happy. That’s what the CEO’s number one job is.
  • Speaker 1
    0:03:01

    And PayFac was freaking them all out while Iger was again kinda behind seems like, hey, you kinda wanna study him. I’m at a teller right now. Don’t you? What about me? So Iger’s in, Jay packs out, stock market responded as we all thought it might with shares up nine percent in premarket trading.
  • Speaker 1
    0:03:16

    Peter, Have you seen anything like this before? This is the craziest thing that I I can remember seeing happen in the business of Hollywood in a long time. So
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:25

    outside of the business of Hollywood, you can definitely think of some examples that are not exactly the same, but are comparable such as Steve Jobs coming back to Apple after some time away at his at next Charles not Charles. Schultz at Starbucks who’s been CEO there, like Howard Schultz. Yeah. I think. Yeah.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:45

    Howard Schultz. I wanted to say
  • Speaker 1
    0:03:46

    Charles Schultz. Charles Schultz. It’s not the Little Greater peanuts.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:49

    That would be great if he had been the CEO of Starbucks. But he’s he has moved back into that role several times. But this is pretty weird. It’s
  • Speaker 1
    0:03:59

    this is old.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:59

    This is just bizarre. I mean, it’s pretty obvious that BobBagger was just quiet quitting this whole time. I just I want them to make a movie about this and call it what about Bob too.
  • Speaker 1
    0:04:10

    I mean, it’s it’s crazy. It really is crazy because, like, if if you if you read as many, industry newsletters as I do, and I read a lot of them. Everything that you hear in these in these newsletters was saying the same thing about Bob Boyer, which is that he was behind the scenes all the time talking to people and being like, hey, you know, I’m still around. I can help out with these tough times. I It’s Which
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:33

    is which is weird because when he left, he left abruptly much earlier than he was supposed to. And so if you recall, he left in February of twenty twenty. That was one month before COVID hit the United States. Now it’s pretty clear that he left in part because he didn’t want to deal with what I for COVID was going to be, I don’t know how much of a sense he had that COVID was gonna become this thing that shut down, you know, the movies and theme parks for basically for a year, if not for longer. But he certainly was aware that COVID was going to be a big deal because he was a guy who oversaw Disney theme park which meant he oversaw Disney in China.
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:12

    And he had that, like, he knew what that was going to be like months before. I think a a lot of people in the United States had really picked up on what a big deal that was. And I think, you know, it’s never been entirely explained why the, you know, the the exit email in February of twenty twenty said effective immediately even though he had been to stay on for a couple of months, but I think you have to imagine that COVID was something that he was just like, nope, I’m out. I don’t wanna deal with this. And so he left and then didn’t deal with it and left it to his successor who the, you know, the reporting on, like, how the how his successor Bob Chapek, Bob Too, was picked is that, like, on the one hand, Bob Iger picked him.
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:55

    And then on the other hand, Bob Iger didn’t like him. And thought he was a bad successor. And I I I confess it’s a little bit muddled. It’s obviously, you know, sort of going all of the reporting. I’m not suggesting that it’s like that that it’s, you know, wrong or or that people are sort of making too much of but, like, it’s all going through a kind of Hollywood gossip mail.
  • Speaker 2
    0:06:15

    Right? That just sort of makes it hard to know exactly what happened there. Part of the problem, though, is that Bob Iger. If you can say a lot of good things about how well he managed Disney before he left, Right? He he really did build a big effective business.
  • Speaker 2
    0:06:31

    He successfully built out the China market even though I’ve you know, I think there was, you know, can talk about the costs of that, but, like, that was a good business play. At least in the short to medium term for them, he bought Star Wars and Marvel to achieve his goal of I think that the phrase he used was cornering the market on franchisable IP. Right? Like, he really took Disney, like, in in a new direction, made big bold choices, and they paid off. But he did not plan his succession well.
  • Speaker 2
    0:06:59

    And that is frankly, like, not a great sign for someone who is coming in for what is I I understand to be a two year contract, during which he’s gonna have to pick a successor. Yeah. Again, Yeah. I
  • Speaker 1
    0:07:13

    we’ll we’ll we’ll get back to that a second. Listen, do you think I I I you know, my in my, you know, lizard brain, in the lizard brain part of me that is always kind of looking at how this could be bad for for me personally and also America. Do you think that this was a backdoor way for Disney to get back in China’s good graces? Because I do I do think that they are they are In bat, I think losing access to the Chinese market for their films has been very, very bad for them. And they worry about losing access to the parks that are there, which would be even worse.
  • Speaker 3
    0:07:51

    Man, I don’t know. I mean, I think that part of what’s happening in China is so driven by you know, ideological considerations there that I don’t know that this is a matter this is something that Disney or Iger can particularly massage. Right? I mean, it’s been fairly clear in recent years that, you know, China saw itself as letting in these western movies. And I think western talks thought that they were, like, that this was, you know, going to be part of a larger narrative where economic opening leads to political liberalization, and they were sort of gonna conquer this market.
  • Speaker 3
    0:08:23

    But China always kept a cap on these movies. And it seems as if this was an attempt to, you know, get audiences accustomed to going to certain kinds of blockbusters, buying time for China to start building its own homegrown blockbusters, and then kicking the US out, taking that market share back. And in fact, China has had box office hits, including some that have, like, sort of traveled abroad modestly in Asia. With sort of nationalistic blockbusters, largely around sort of Chinese military exploits. You’ve had one, the wondering Earth, that’s a science fiction movie.
  • Speaker 3
    0:09:00

    But, you know,
  • Speaker 1
    0:09:02

    I
  • Speaker 3
    0:09:02

    just I don’t know that this is about, like, playing nice with the regime or personal relationships. You know, I think that China would very much like to, among other things, sort of, counter Korea in what it perceives as its cultural sphere of influence that you know, it it it was fine to have American audiences go into the sort of very specific, you know, this specifically edited local versions of Hollywood movies for a while,
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:33

    but I
  • Speaker 3
    0:09:33

    don’t know that there was ever sort of a long term intent to gain market access. And I think the relationship between the two countries has become so tricky that, you know, I don’t know what Iger could do to woo the Chinese government that would not attract some scrutiny from US regulators. Right? Like, I just I don’t know what the narrative or the play is. I
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:55

    also think that China’s government used Disney and specifically in American movie studios generally a lot the same way that Netflix used Marvel. So Netflix realized they that they needed recognizable properties and Netflix built out a whole little mini universe of Marvel IP before Disney plus existed. And it was sort of ugly kind of sorta connected to the movies, but not really. And so stuff like daredevil, right, and that’s a luke cage, that sort of thing. And the idea was that they could leverage that into something else.
  • Speaker 2
    0:10:31

    And then Disney, of course, decided to take it back because they saw, oh, we’re losing out on this. But China, in some sense, looked at Disney and looked at, you know, Hollywood US film production and said, oh, let’s take that. And and Use that use somebody else’s material for a while while we build out our own capacity. And it’s not clear that at this point they wanna go back to using somebody else’s material. Maybe if the terms are favorable enough, maybe if they think they can get something out of it, but it’s not obvious what they would get out of it.
  • Speaker 2
    0:11:03

    Because I think they’re China’s the the Chinese government’s whole goal always was to kind of in source of to eventually in source and build domestic film production capacity. And that that Disney was just sort of a a temporary it was understood to be a sort of temporary solution while they built that up in house or in country. The
  • Speaker 3
    0:11:24

    Chinese government’s COVID-zero policy has, you know, persists you know, not just because of sort of trauma that came out of the initial Wuhan outbreak, but because it’s become a fantastically convenient way for the Chinese government to expand the surveillance state and to instill what are effectively sort of habits of compliance in a population that has put up with stuff that you know, unlike the comparatively mild COVID prevention and emergency United States, you know, if the Biden administration or the Trump administration tried to shut down an entire city for a month on end, like not letting people leave their apartments, there would be an actual under revolution in the US. And you know, China instead has used that to really narrow the sphere of control. And, you know, cultural control for China is not just, you know, they there are laws limiting the number of hours that people under eighteen can spend playing video games. Right? And, you know, like, facial recognition sign ins.
  • Speaker 3
    0:12:24

    There are, you know, subjects that are completely banned. Chinese box office recently has been bad, you know, and there have not been movies that have been big draws. But, you know, I don’t know what the Chinese government sees it self getting out of, you know, Hollywood movies at that point. I
  • Speaker 2
    0:12:43

    don’t think this is about China. Yeah. I think this is about the US macroeconomic situation. And the expectation that there’s either gonna be a recession or at the very least a a lot of consumer cutbacks, especially when it comes to subscriptions and media. And the ad market is really, really soft right now if you’ve been following the Warner Brothers.
  • Speaker 2
    0:13:05

    They’re I mean, the Zaziloft there is just like the the ad market is a total disaster. And and then in addition, streaming is not paying off for anyone right now. And so all of these companies have invested a huge amount of money With the intention of losing money in streaming, it’s not like this is not exactly going to plan. At the same time, the plan was to lose billions and billions of dollars. Yeah.
  • Speaker 2
    0:13:29

    And they that plan looks maybe like a less good plan when you’re heading into what a lot of people expect to be a recession. And the board simply did not have the confidence. The shareholders simply did not have the confidence. In Bob Cheyenne, to lead the company through turbulent economic times. Bob Iger looks like looks like a safe choice to them.
  • Speaker 2
    0:13:53

    And so Bob Iger who had been hanging around saying, hey, you know, I’m still available. I got I got a lot of free time.
  • Speaker 3
    0:14:03

    I’m yotting around, I’m making money with Jared Kushner, but, like, you know, if you needed me, call me. One
  • Speaker 1
    0:14:09

    thing we haven’t really discussed and one thing frankly, that is is slightly beyond the purview of this show that but is very very important here is the actual parks operation. And I will say I will say that, you know, it’s it’s not a thing we we talk about a lot because it’s not really, again, what our area of expertise is. I will say that when I when I mentioned having gone to Disney last in the spring, you know, I talked take my family. Right? And I heard from a bunch of people who were like, god, it’s too bad.
  • Speaker 1
    0:14:37

    You couldn’t go, like, three years ago, you know, before COVID when everything was so much better and the fast passes were better. And they’ll And now I will say that from my perspective, as as a parent who was taking a family there for the first time, it was great. I had a I had a great time. It was really well run. Everything every like, there weren’t a bunch of bunch of breakdowns, like, everything seemed to be going okay.
  • Speaker 1
    0:14:59

    But but I will say that I have heard repeatedly from folks over the last six months or so, like, the park situation is dire. Like, we go all the time. It is much worse now than it was. They are nickel and diming us to death. They are they are making us spend more money than they ever have before, and the quality of the experience has decreased.
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:17

    Yeah. So so Chapek comes from the Parks business before he was in the top job and hit one of his decisions was post COVID. He was going to basically stop serving the regulars and instead start attempt to extract as much money as possible from, let’s say, relatively from from fairly rich families who don’t go as often. Yeah. And so the rather than building systems for people who are gonna spend a lot of money but go a lot So, you know, for sort of hardcore Disney fanatics who just make Disney their life, he decided that he was going to reduce the number of total people allowed in these parks and then also institute just sort of a a a system of of, like, nickel and diming fees, but, like, quite expensive nickel and diming fees.
  • Speaker 2
    0:16:06

    Almost like a a lot of this sort of thing that you sort of hear people griping about with airlines where every single little, you know, sort of, oh, you get four extra inches of leg room That’ll be another ninety two dollars, and it’s just all priced in. And he did in fact, as I understand, succeed in bringing in extra revenue this week. Like, it was just from a sheer short term dollar strategy perspective, it was pretty effective. At the same time, the people who loved Disney loved it less as a result. And so Disney is not just about, you know, making extracting as much money as you can in the short term.
  • Speaker 2
    0:16:43

    Disney does have a brand to protect. And it’s not obvious that Bob Chapek was doing a great job of protecting that brand, whereas Bob Iger, whatever. Again, you can complain about his China moves. You can complain about a bunch of stuff that he did. But Bob Iger built and expanded and deepened the Disney brand over the course of his fifteen years at that.
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:01

    Top of Disney and was really pretty successful at it. Yeah. And, I mean, we heard from a longtime listener to the show front of the
  • Speaker 3
    0:17:09

    podcast who said, you know, his family has been to Disney twenty times and now would not go back until some of the changes like the absorbing it piece for sure line skipping are rescinded because it just it feels miserable. Yeah. Now
  • Speaker 1
    0:17:22

    I will say again, I will say I had a I had a very good time there. So I I but I’m I’m like that. The the the target, you know, the, like, upper middle class, upper class, you know, family that’s coming in once every two years for a vacation. I don’t I don’t really mind spending a little bit more. But I can And what they
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:40

    basically figured out how to do is to take the Sony bunch class of people and get another two hundred dollars out of them and over the course of one trip. It’s it’s I mean, it’s a lot of money, but it’s not like, man, I’m doing this every weekend where people who are going every weekend are are really mad now. Once you have that sunk cost of, like,
  • Speaker 1
    0:17:58

    I’m here. I’ve paid for the tickets and the flight and everything. Like, it’s it’s you know, the most valuable thing you have is time and spending a little bit of money to to save money is save time is is worth it. Alright. Well, again, fat a fascinating story.
  • Speaker 1
    0:18:10

    I’m very curious to see if Iger, you know, tries to pick up a new company. I people were like, well, what if he tries to buy Netflix? I was like, I think Netflix is possibly bigger than Disney at this point, which would be make it a make it a pretty hard sale there. But
  • Speaker 2
    0:18:24

    really, their content spend is bigger. Yeah. I think the big thing that he could do that would make waves certainly for the our podcast audience and for us is that he might he he is gonna try and fix the Star Wars feature film
  • Speaker 1
    0:18:36

    franchise, and that might mean moving Kathleen Kennedy out of the Star Wars overseer role? Maybe it’ll mean we will get something that is better than just kind of fine like Andor. You know? Make
  • Speaker 3
    0:18:49

    Tony Gilroy like your in house Kevin fight. Because
  • Speaker 1
    0:18:52

    Andor is great. Andor is fine. It’s fine. It’s so good. And Tony Gilroy, it’s the only person to understand Star Wars.
  • Speaker 1
    0:19:00

    It’s okay. You say it’s very okay. I
  • Speaker 2
    0:19:02

    it’s Tony Gilroy.
  • Speaker 3
    0:19:03

    As the person who, like, people were scandalized that I had not watch Andor. I have now watched half of Andor. Peter’s cracked, sunny, as always, is wrong. No. And we should go out to the feature.
  • Speaker 1
    0:19:12

    It’s it’s perfectly fine. I like to watch it when I’m at the gym on my phone, that’s when I watch Andor. It’s great. Perfect. Perfect timed.
  • Speaker 1
    0:19:23

    Entertainment for my elliptical slash exercise bike. Alright. So what do we think? Is it a controversy or an controversy that Bob replaced Bob in a midnight massacre, Peter? Your opinion about Andor is a controversy.
  • Speaker 1
    0:19:36

    This
  • Speaker 2
    0:19:36

    is obviously a controversy. This is an insane story. This is like the biggest media company in the world and they’re just like, oops. We’re we’re gonna do what we’re seeing on our giant on our CEO
  • Speaker 1
    0:19:47

    succession plan. Alyssa? CONTROVERSY. It’s definitely a controversy. And again, I literally thought Peter had been fooled by a fake Twitter account when he sent me that that tweet.
  • Speaker 1
    0:19:58

    I was like, that camp. I gotta make sure this is the real Brooks Barnes turns out he was. So I don’t do fake news. Real news story. Alright.
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:07

    Make sure to swing by Bulwark Plus for our special bonus episode. Last week’s on children’s books was great. By the way, you should go listen to it if you haven’t. Go read the comments. Many many great suggestions from listeners like Gina and Michael.
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:18

    They were leaving great recommendations. Thank you for doing that. Go check them out. This week, we’re gonna be discussing some of our favorite movies about food. You’ll have plenty of thanks giving leftovers to pick over.
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:28

    We’re gonna talk about foodie sentiments. It’s gonna be great. Now on to the main event. The banshees of Inishiren, Martin McDonough’s latest. It stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson who worked with McDonough on his masterpiece in Bruj.
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:42

    A banshees is set on the fictional island of Innochiran just off the mainland of Ireland in nineteen twenty three. It’s during the Irish civil war, rifles and cannons, can be heard in the distances. Farrell’s Patrick. I’m just gonna call him Patrick. I’m not I’m not trying to do the Irish pronunciation of this.
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:58

    Walks his animals about the island while Gleeson’s comb tries to have his beer in peace, just wants to be left alone. He’s tired of Patrick. He doesn’t wanna be bothered by this slightly dim, friendly, but dim man anymore. He just wants to be work on his music and create something that will live on. Long after he’s dead, and Patty’s hammering has left him unable to do that as the trailers reveal.
  • Speaker 1
    0:21:20

    Calm tells Patrick that he’s gonna cut off a finger every time he bothers him. I don’t think we’re spoiling too much to say that he follows through on that once a little bit. Kinda gives a new meaning to the phrase, cut off your nose despite your face. But here we are. The dilemma that McDonough has crafted here is kind of fiendishly clever.
  • Speaker 1
    0:21:40

    In its simplicity. Friendship’s end all the time, but they rarely end abruptly and for no good reason. Or at least a reason everyone judges to be insufficient. Patrick didn’t insult column. He didn’t injured him.
  • Speaker 1
    0:21:50

    He didn’t, you know, pour sugar in his mother’s gas tank. He’s just kind of boring. And Colm doesn’t wanna be around a boring person anymore. It’s a deeply and darkly funny movie, which is aided by the fact that it just has a top flight cast. And in addition to the leads, you’ve got Barry Killam.
  • Speaker 1
    0:22:06

    As the village idiot who has a sort of twitchy vitality to him and then Carrie Condon who is doing I think I’ve I’ve loved her since Rome. I think she’s doing career best work here as Patrick’s longsuffering sister. It really is the most Irish movie of all time, the banshees of Inno Sheeran starring you know, Colin Farrell and Barry Keel. I I just can’t imagine a movie any more Irish than this. The film is set against the backdrop of the Irish civil war, as I mentioned, and I’m sure there are many parallels between that conflict and the cold war between Coleman and Patrick that you that experts in the field of Irish conflict, we’ll be able to work out.
  • Speaker 1
    0:22:42

    I don’t I don’t know any of that. So I’m gonna leave that to them. I will say, however, that the movie called to mind Some of the talk that you hear occasionally of national divorce. Right? You sometimes hear folks on the far left and far right say, especially on the far right, they’re like, oh, you know, America just needs to amicably separate, you know, we’re too different now.
  • Speaker 1
    0:22:59

    We don’t have anything in common. We just we’re gonna we’ll go over here. You go over there here and we’ll we’ll all go our separate ways. But one thing that the banshees of Inishiren does is it reminds you that such divorces aren’t really possible. I mean, there’s always gonna be hurt feelings.
  • Speaker 1
    0:23:13

    There will eventually be violence. National divorce isn’t a thing. It’s just not a thing, but Civil War is a thing, and Civil War’s ugly self damaging stuff. Alyssa, What did you make of the banshees of Inashiren? I
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:26

    admire the
  • Speaker 3
    0:23:27

    performances in this tremendously while being somewhat irritated by the thudding obviousness of this movie. I mean, there’s literally a moment where the characters talk about how banshees are no longer like running around causing havoc. They’re just sort of watching people destroy themselves. And then you have like a sort of creepy old lady who wanders around me like, bad things are going to happen and I’m walking along the beach with a hook. It’s like, oh, here here’s your literal banshee of in a sharon.
  • Speaker 3
    0:23:58

    You have a just a sort of exhausting metaphor for the Irish civil war, which is, you know, Coleman’s decision to just become radically intractable all of a sudden, and then, literally, to commit repeated acts of sort of self defeating violence. Right? Like, he is literally cutting off the fingers that allow him to play the fiddle, that is ostensibly the thing that he wants to spend the rest of his life doing. Right? And, you know, Pedro is presented as sort of like this, you know, kind of an innocent.
  • Speaker 3
    0:24:36

    Right? He’s, you know, he’s dull. He clearly has, you know, a temper. He burns down Colm’s house at one point. But he, you know, he’s like this sort of simple person.
  • Speaker 3
    0:24:45

    He doesn’t know why this is happening to him. And just like, I mean, I’m not an expert in the troubles. I am, you know, Irish on my mother’s side. My middle name is Bennett. And so just as someone, you know, who is read about and is interested in this to a certain extent, the sort of heavy handedness of as a metaphor, which just don’t really tire some by the end of the movie.
  • Speaker 3
    0:25:13

    And again, like, scene to scene beautifully written, scene to scene tremendously acted. But as a whole, it just totally lacked the sort of subtlety and surprise of InBridge for me. I love that movie. I love InBridge. I think it’s tremendous and surprising and just deeply moving and it did not feel that way.
  • Speaker 3
    0:25:35

    About this movie. I mean, I think that I totally agree with you about the character Siobhan, just beautifully acted and is the person who’s, like, who’s thinks she’s getting out, but is actually headed to the mainland where the conflict is. And in fact, we’ll continue for decades to come I mean, it’s just, you know, poignant and, you know, sort of it’s the most interesting and sort of subtle point about the limits of the possibility of escape. Right? Like, when you, you know, when you were in a societal dynamic, you can pick yourself up and leave, but you can’t really depart.
  • Speaker 3
    0:26:09

    But I just I thought the movie was just two on the nose to really feel transcendent to me. We
  • Speaker 1
    0:26:16

    live in a society. That’s the that is the the lesson of this movie. Peter, why did you make of Banchy
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:21

    of Anishiren. I loved this movie. And I liked the Fable like, not quite play like, but almost play like nature of it. Right? Including the creepy old woman who calls to mind the witches for macbeth and sort of seems to be there as a specter.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:39

    Right? That’s yes, in some ways, a literal banshee. But she’s hunting this movie, and this is a this is a movie about the ways in which, you know, human relationships are hunted. And I guess I did not see this as a thudding metaphor for the war. I sort of I felt like it was actually working in reverse.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:59

    Where the war was a metaphor for the people rather than the people being, you know, sort of a a stand in for the the larger sociopolitical cultural conflict of the war. Right? There’s that bit at the very beginning of the movie where Colin Farrell’s character is walking across, you know, at the islet. He sees gunshots across the water. He says something to the effect of good luck with whatever it is you’re fighting about.
  • Speaker 2
    0:27:20

    Right? And the point is to some extent that it’s It’s act it’s it’s totally irrelevant what they’re fighting about. They’re just people trying to find some way to live together. And living together is inherently hard. And I guess I was really just taken with the way that this movie seems to sort of ask And in some ways answer, the question, what decency do we owe to other people?
  • Speaker 2
    0:27:49

    And then it makes an argument that we sort of owe them a lot, that decency is important even when it’s hard. And then further says, and sometimes it’s really, really hard. And it there’s the the Barranquito character is really interesting here because The Barracura character is sort of one step, stupider, and more annoying than the Colin Farrell character. And he, you know, he he he flirts with Carrie Condon and she sort of politely lets him off, you know, and then, of course, spoilers spoilers, spoilers. You’ve been warned spoilers.
  • Speaker 2
    0:28:23

    Of course, he ends up dead, right, as a result of this. And The movie seems to be saying, you know, in some ways, look, we should be trying to be friendly with each other. We should be in some ways accepting of idiots who, you know, who try our patients. At the same time, we all know there’s limits. There have to be limits.
  • Speaker 2
    0:28:46

    Barike, who is the limit? He’s actually like and and that’s not wrong either. And so it’s trying to find this space in which Well, on the one hand, we we have to be nice to each other even if we think we have better things to do. Even if we think it costs us greatness in some sense. And on the other hand, well, maybe not to everybody.
  • Speaker 2
    0:29:06

    Maybe not to the truly stupid. Right? The truly irritating. Right? And this and it and it’s it’s It just has this sort of nice nuance and texture to its moral arguments.
  • Speaker 2
    0:29:17

    And it’s very human. Well, it’s also it’s it’s it’s quite schematic. Right? It’s quite play like and it’s sort of in its structure. But it’s it’s really just kinda it’s it’s nicely observed and it’s also it’s just gorgeous.
  • Speaker 2
    0:29:32

    I loved looking at this movie and and all of these beautiful beautiful exteriors especially after the last couple of years where with more with big Hollywood studios, we’ve seen a shocking number of movies over the past couple of years. Where outside scenes are very clearly set on sets inside in a warehouse somewhere with, like, some plastic plants and, like, you know, they brought in some dirt for Sandra Bullock to, like, stomp around on. You know, this is a movie that set that was shot not obviously, the island is not real. But was shot on a real island, in a real place, under real suns, you know, and you just it just really it’s very affecting and it makes for like, it’s just so much more enjoyable to look
  • Speaker 3
    0:30:18

    at. Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s a great movie for lovers of Irish Mullens. It’s also a movie be that raises, I think, an interesting question, which is how much was being very handsome, bad for Colin Farrell’s career? Because he’s wonderful in this.
  • Speaker 3
    0:30:32

    And part of it is that he’s just sort of grown into his face. Right? Like, he is he is no longer pretty in the way that he used to be. And as a result, I think, you know, there’s space for him to do more in an orderly way. And, you know, he was for a while, like, considered kinda, like, hot and messy in the Hollywood gossip ecosystem.
  • Speaker 3
    0:30:54

    And, you know, I I just wonder if you know, growing into a slightly more weathered face has allowed him to be seen a different way and do different and obviously he has, you know, an ongoing relationship with McDonough’s — Yeah. — director.
  • Speaker 1
    0:31:08

    But I mean, I think
  • Speaker 3
    0:31:09

    that I think that’s
  • Speaker 1
    0:31:10

    the big thing here, right, is that he he it’s not just that he has gotten a little older and a little more weathered. Right? It’s that he is he is he has evolved from being a a like a big budget leading man in movies like Swats or daredevil. Right? He’s the he’s the second leader of that.
  • Speaker 1
    0:31:29

    To being a character, actor. He is he is Martin McDonough has given him the space to become essentially a character actor. Although
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:36

    the three movies he did he’s done with McDonough, he plays either the lead or a co
  • Speaker 1
    0:31:40

    lead and, you know, right, but it’s not it’s not pretty internally would Movie — — lead. — lead. It’s it’s he is a he is a leading man, but it’s it is a, you know, a much a much more nuanced thing, which is great. Well, let me ask you guys a question. Do you think that Brendan Gleeson’s request columns request to be left alone is unreasonable.
  • Speaker 1
    0:32:02

    Not I mean, cutting off your own finger is fine. We can we can that unreasonable. I’m saying, I’m asking you the actual request to be left alone and left in peace and not be bothered by a person you don’t wanna be bothered anymore. Is that an unreasonable request. Peter, it was
  • Speaker 2
    0:32:17

    totally reasonable. It’s totally reasonable, but that doesn’t mean that it’s wise, and that doesn’t mean that it won’t have deleterious effects.
  • Speaker 3
    0:32:24

    Well, I also think it’s I think I mean, it was a slightly different answer. I think it is unreasonable given the circumstances. Right? I mean, It is one thing to break off a friendship in a larger community in a city where you don’t have to see the other person every day where you and the other person are gonna have alternate options for, like, social outlets, for places to go drink. But when your request disrupts an entire community and denies another person sort of social comforts and, you know, kind of comfortable access to other accommodations, then the sort of severity and totality of the request, I think, becomes unreasonable.
  • Speaker 1
    0:33:09

    Well, but but is that actually what happens? I mean, we see that they’re in the same they go to the same restaurants. They they’re still able to be in the same place together. It’s not like Brendan Gleeson’s says to Colin Farrell, you can never come within fifty feet of me. He just doesn’t wanna be he just doesn’t wanna be talked to.
  • Speaker 3
    0:33:25

    Yeah. But it’s I mean, the sort of miasma of it is obviously disruptive in a wider way. Right? It makes the garment uncomfortable. You know, we’ve got the priest, like, sort of curious and anxious about it.
  • Speaker 3
    0:33:36

    It creates this sort of constant for a song in a way that is unpleasant. And also, frankly, just like, the guy keeps sending mixed signals. Right? About, like, what he actually wants. There are, you know, there are times when Neil is, like, some level of contract with him and doesn’t cut off a finger.
  • Speaker 3
    0:33:52

    And, I mean, he’s a, like, he’s a bad friend.
  • Speaker 1
    0:33:55

    Well, yeah, the this so the my favorite scene in the movie, I think the sweetest, weirdly scene in the movie. At one point, police officer punches Colin Farrell out and and Gleeson goes and picks him up and silently, you know, puts him in his cards he’s driving him home and then gets out of the cart and he’s like Because because the thing is I mean, this is the thing about the movie in what I find very interesting thing is it. It’s not it’s not like Brendan Gleeson’s character hates Colin Farrell’s character. Colin does not hate Katherine. He just doesn’t wanna be bothered by him anymore.
  • Speaker 1
    0:34:26

    And as a misentrop, I have to say I’m very, very sympathetic to this point of view. This is why I’m trying to figure out how how far I can go with these requests in my my own life. The
  • Speaker 2
    0:34:37

    movie is in some ways about this question. Right? It’s about misanthropy and and despair. Right? There’s the whole conversation with the priest about how’s the despair, right, that that sort of kind of hangs is sort of one of the movies big questions, sort of out out in the open there.
  • Speaker 2
    0:34:54

    And again, this is why, you know, I think the difference between Alyssa’s answer and mine is to some extent the thing that the movie is wrestling with. The movie is trying to say, well, look, Brendan Gleeson clearly fights this guy kind of annoying. And he would love to play, to make art, and to spend his time well. Like, that’s not crazy. That’s not unreasonable.
  • Speaker 2
    0:35:17

    But it’s also saying, that there’s consequences to that sort of honestly, to that sort of selfishness and to that sort of thing which isn’t a sin, but isn’t very nice now, is it, right, as the as the priest says. And it is trying to wrestle with the fact that there that, like, you can be you can make a totally reasonable request that says, look, I’m just gonna try and I’m gonna try and bring something new into the world. Right? It makes There’s that great little monologue about how, you know, two weeks ago, there was no song and then I wrote a part of the song and another part of the song. And then there was a new song I created something.
  • Speaker 2
    0:35:53

    What was that worth? Was that worth? What effect effectively starts a little miniature war between these two people. One of whom is kind of dim. Maybe isn’t bringing that much to the world.
  • Speaker 2
    0:36:07

    At the same time, this ends up being it it ends up being quite disruptive to the island to the two men’s lives you know, to their property, to their no one else die know what no other human dies, except unless we count the the war that’s already happening, that’s they’re not really part of. But, you know, to their animal friends and it’s a movie that It sort of says, well, look, you you can be not nice. That’s okay. And you we can even understand why you might not be nice. But if you’re gonna choose to not be nice to people, then you it will cost
  • Speaker 1
    0:36:40

    something, and
  • Speaker 2
    0:36:41

    it will hurt, and there will be social and individual and personal personal consequences. Fair
  • Speaker 1
    0:36:49

    enough. Alright. So what do we think? Thumbs up or thumbs down on the banshees of Inashiro and Peter. Loved it.
  • Speaker 1
    0:36:54

    Thumbs up. Alyssa. Thumbs up for, you know,
  • Speaker 3
    0:36:56

    fine English fine Irish woolens and acting. Thumbs
  • Speaker 1
    0:37:02

    up.
  • Speaker 2
    0:37:02

    I
  • Speaker 1
    0:37:02

    liked it a lot. I I think this movie is it is his best film since InBruges by far. I don’t think it’s quite as good as InBruges, but it is his best film since in brewers for sure. Alright. Is it for this week’s show?
  • Speaker 1
    0:37:15

    Make sure to swing by a t m a dot to the board dot com for a bonus episode on Friday. Make sure tell your friends, strong recommendation from a friend is basically the only way to grow podcast audiences, if you don’t grow, we will die. If you did not love today’s episode, please complain to me on Twitter at something fun to chugging into that it is in fact a show in your podcast feed. See you guys next week.
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